The Man In The Picture
by fallingwthstyle
Summary: Mayor McDaniels is reunited with the love of her life, two decades after she thought he had died and all she had left of him was her memories, and a picture that she kept on her desk. Originally written for the spdrabblebomb on tumblr.


_Notes: This is a missing scene from a longer work, 'This Is Not Your Parent's K2' but can be read as a stand alone oneshot; Officer Barbrady was killed in an explosion and fire in the line of duty after successfully stopping a van carrying a very large bomb headed toward Washington, D.C._

Mayor McDaniels finally looked away as they began to lower Officer Barbrady's casket into the ground. The funeral was over, and now all she wanted to do was leave quickly, but she knew protocol required her to say a few words to the crowd that had gathered first.

She walked to the podium where Sargent Yates had delivered a moving eulogy a few minutes ago, her two aides flanking her at a respectful distance. One of them handed her a bottle of water and she nodded gratefully and took a sip before leaning down to the microphone.

"I want to thank you all for coming today." Her throat was raw and it was difficult to speak. She looked out beyond the crowd; spring had come late to South Park this year, but the flowers were in full bloom now. Their beauty was lost on her; she might as well be looking at a black and white photograph. She spotted Tweek and Craig, standing off to the side in their best suits among the small crowd who had remained to listen to her, holding hands. Even seeing them wasn't enough to lift her from her sadness.

"Officer Barbrady exemplified everything a police officer should be," she continued. "And Vincent was a wonderful man, and my best friend. His selfless act three nights ago may have saved thousands of lives; remember that, and don't ever forget him."

She looked behind Tweek and Craig at the flowers blooming in Stark's Pond Park. She and Vincent had had several picnics there recently; and twenty years ago she and Roger had as well, and it was those she remembered with the greatest fondness. They were young then, and believed they had their whole lives ahead of them. She was a law student, and he owned a real estate company and the two of them were planning a future together. Back then, each spring had felt like a new beginning, but she sensed she would never have that feeling again.

Life as she knew it ended the day he had driven to Denver to take photographs of a restaurant he was going to list for sale. A gas line in the kitchen had exploded, killing three employees and six customers...including Roger, as well as a state senator. All she had left of Roger now was her memories, and the photograph of him she kept on her desk.

Her throat closed and she choked back a sob. She turned and hurried away, toward the SUV that would take her home. Her aides followed close behind, ready to fend off anyone who tried to talk to her.

She was seconds from breaking protocol and opening the back door herself instead of waiting for one of the aides to do it when she heard the voice. It was just a single word, but it stopped her in her tracks.

"Mary...?"

It was _him_. Even after all these years, she would recognize that voice anywhere.

Her head swam and her legs threatened to buckle, but she told herself she must not faint, not now. "Roger...?"

"Excuse me sir," one of her aides stepped forward to intervene and then froze as he, too, recognized the man from the picture on the mayor's desk. His hair was grey now and the moustache was gone, but it was clearly him.

"It's all right, Mr. Johnson," she said, taking a step closer to Roger, still not certain if she was going to faint or not. _How can he possibly be here?_

Roger pulled a set of keys from his pocket. "My car's parked right over there," he said, nodding toward a nondescript rental car parked a few dozen yards away. "I can take you anywhere you need to go, if it's okay...?"

"Mayor?" Johnson asked, and at her reassuring nod he stepped back again. Roger and Mayor McDaniels walked to his car and climbed in. He drove three blocks and pulled into the parking lot of the Whole Foods Grocery and parked in the shade of a tree at the far end of the lot. Everything felt surreal, as if she had just stepped into a _Twilight Zone_ episode.

"Where have you _been?"_ she finally whispered.

"Can I show you something?" He pulled a slim manila folder from beside his seat and held it in his lap. "Because if I tell you where I've been, you might not believe me."

She was ready to believe anything he told her; she'd already seen her town destroyed by Mecha-Streisand as well as an oversized 4th of July snake; almost nothing surprised her anymore.

She nodded and watched him open the folder. There was only three sheets of paper inside, and on top was a newspaper clipping she herself had a copy of, carefully tucked away in her box of memories, a front-page article about the explosion at the restaurant. "You know about this, of course," he said, quickly flipping that page over as if he hadn't meant for her to see it. He'd revealed yet another clipping. "Do you remember this a couple months later?"

She looked at the article which she vaguely remembered reading a long time ago, about the aftermath of that explosion; it hadn't been an accident but an assassination of the senator by an organized crime group, who had stopped at the restaurant for lunch during a campaign tour. The article detailed the outcome of the trial where four of the people involved had been sentenced to life in prison. All four of their mugshots were at the bottom of the page.

"I didn't die in that explosion," Roger said into the silence that had descended between them as she looked at the article. "I had just left the restaurant and was walking back to my car. It knocked me off my feet and I broke my arm, but..." He trailed off and she nodded.

"But you didn't die?"

He shook his head. "The FBI had been tipped off that something might happen there, but they arrived about five minutes too late. They found me lying in the parking lot, and wanted to see the pictures I had taken before the explosion..." He swallowed, nervously reaching down to move the clipping aside, keeping this one face up; underneath it was a single 8X10 photograph.

"I took this picture ten minutes before the explosion," Roger said. It showed the inside of the restaurant; four people were visible: the senator who had been targeted along with one of his aides, a waitress, and someone in the background wearing a pair of workman's overalls.

"Recognize him?" Roger asked, pointing at the man in the background. He slid the article he had just shown her closer and pointed to one of the mugshots. They were clearly the same man.

"He was there pretending to check for a gas leak in one of their ovens. Instead, he planted a small bomb next to the gas line, and it was enough to blow the whole building up." Roger swallowed nervously; he had been waiting two decades to tell her this. "That picture got him and three accomplices sentenced to life in prison. But there was more of that group still out there...and if they had any inkling that the person who took that picture was still alive...they might have gone after people I loved to find me. So...they put me in the witness protection program, and I've been living in Boston under a different name for the last twenty years. _That's_ where I've been." He swallowed a lump in his throat. "I wanted to get in touch with you, Mary...but it would have been too dangerous."

She was staring at him in wonder. "But why are you here now?" she asked.

"My..." he sighed. " _Case worker_ got in touch with me about two months ago. She told me that the last of those four had died in prison...and that the rest of that organization had mostly been jailed or vanished, and I was free to do whatever I wanted. Oh, and my monthly stipend from them was being cut by 60%." He smiled. "I think it was mostly a cost-cutting move, but that's okay because I'm free to do whatever I want now. I wasn't sure if I should come here or not, or if you'd even want to see me, or..."

He closed the folder and tucked it away again before continuing. "But when I heard about what happened in your town, I had to come. I, ah..." he looked away from her, out the windshield. "I didn't know you and Officer Barbrady were together until today...and now I feel sort of like an opportunistic jerk—"

"No, Roger." She rested her hand against his arm. "I'm glad you came...it's really good to see you again." They regarded each other for a long moment before she continued: "You can't imagine what it's like to lose _two_ people in an explosion—" she reached down and took his hand. "One I loved with all my heart...and one I cared deeply about, who I thought I could learn to love some day." She sighed and another comfortable silence settled over them.

"Would you like to go somewhere and have coffee?" Roger finally asked.

Mary smiled; it was the first time in years it reached all the way to her eyes. "No," she replied, and at Roger's dismayed look she hurried to add, "I want to go somewhere and get a six-pack of beer, some sandwiches, and about a pound of potato salad..." she looked over his shoulder at the flowers that were blooming everywhere; the entire world suddenly looked more colorful. The sky was bluer and the clouds more beautiful; even the bright yellow dandelions that she once considered a nuisance growing alongside the parking lot were pretty. She sensed a new beginning was possible, and it was coming her way; no, coming both their ways. She also knew she'd be crying into Roger's shoulder by sundown after opening up to him about Vincent, but for now that was okay.

She squeezed his hand and finished, "I want to go have a picnic."

THE END

 _Neither the Mayor nor Officer Barbrady seem to have a canon name, so I named her Mary because it sounds a bit like 'Mayor', and as a homage to Mary Kay Bergman who provided her voice in the first three seasons of the show. I named Officer Barbrady Vincent because I dunno why, it just sounded right ;-)_

 _Thanks for reading!_


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